Knowing You is the Kiss of Death
by Bobo Peterson
Summary: Assassins can have social anxiety, too. (Ryuji/Margaret) Suggest pairings.
1. Filth, TravisSylvia

**Knowing You is the Kiss of Death**

**Summary #1: **He was a pig. A filthy, disgusting, repulsive nerd who was probably going to die alone in a pile of thoroughly used tissues. Looking once around his room, she thought herself a masochist for falling for him. Travis/Sylvia

**Pairing: **Travis/Sylvia, before the Jasper fight.

**Disclaimer: **No More Heroes is the property of Goichi Suda. I am not profiting off this fic in any way (not counting personal amusement).

* * *

After hearing his exclamation of triumph, she laid her cheek onto the pillow and felt like the dirtiest whore alive.

There was no reason to feel that way, right? She had only done her job. She had only kept her promise. He was probably going to be dead in a few hours anyway; all he needed was a little push, and she provided it. It was only business. Only business.

This was the lowest point of her life. Here she was, laying completely naked in a mussled, neglected bed in some smelly motel room owned by a filthy bottomfeeder who was not even a stain of a human being. Worse, she had let him put his dry, coarse hands all over her slender body. She had let him place his dirty mouth against her warm, pink lips. She had let him have her, and she fucking loved it.

It was the best sex she ever had, all thirty minutes of it.

Nothing could describe the simmering shame that ate into her skin, the kind of shame that continued to beat angrily inside of her chest when he finally re-entered the room and silently began to dress. When she observed him pulling his shredded, abused jeans back on, she never thought she could love him anymore then she did in that moment. After three years, they had finally reached through to each other. It wasn't the most beautiful thing to ever happen, but it happened nonetheless. Yet, something undoubtedly kept the two apart. The air. The city. The situation. He didn't even look at her. How could he? Honestly, she couldn't even look at herself now, after the barbaric things she had just done with the city's top killer. He took all action to avoid her, neglect her, and leave her in that dingy, muggy room to fester and die. Door shut. Gone forever.

Perhaps she was just being pessimistic. Travis did care about her. Right? Or maybe, she was just another person in the way. Another obstacle. That's how he saw every other person in his way. What made her any different? Use or be used. Like one of the tissues on his floor.

So what if she was pessimistic? Pessimism was the law of survival in this city. Outside that soft lit, white-walled room was a jungle. Out there, it was dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. It was the type of environment that she enjoyed. After all, no other woman rose to the top of the UAA as fast as she did. She had lied, betrayed, and murdered her way to a fairly nice executive position. At the age of twenty-seven, that wasn't bad at all.

Sylvia smiled up towards the cracked ceiling, following each little line with her eyes. "He will throw me away when he iz done with me." She gave a weak chuckle. "Stab him in zee back. Hurt him before he hurts you." Yes, she was being pessimistic. After all, Travis killed a barrage of people for his loser friend. She was at least somewhat important to him, at least more than that Bishop guy. If she had been murdered, would he go through that miserable cycle for her? Would he subject himself to all that pain, all that repeated misery, all that senseless violence, for her honor? Why should he? It was obvious she had used him, even from the beginning. She did it for something as menial as money, and she did it with a smile.

"He would because he loves me!" Like an aimless child, Sylvia rocked from side to side, growing fussy in her blanket burrito. "He would do it because he loves me!"

Oh, how pathetic she felt in that moment, rolled in his filthy sheets! What the hell was she doing? She was Sylvia Christel! She wasn't supposed to be some stupid, enamoured schoolgirl! She was supposed to be untouchable, unreachable, shut off from all human interaction. In her heart was a cruel, calculating businesswoman, who only looked out for herself. It had been that way since she was a girl, and she had been fine all the same! She didn't need anyone.

A tear, barely visible, rolled down her cheek and disappeared into the sheets. She hated that tear. That one, single tear.

She had betrayed herself.

For a while, she had it all. She had friends in high places, money that overflowed from the pockets of every gullible assassin, and a damn sexy body. All she had to do was smooth talk her way into the hearts of some of the world's most bloodthirsty criminals, lure them into the killing business, and throw them away when the time called for it. She did it all without any kind of feeling. Remorse? Remorse was a joke.

Yet, when she saw him leave the motel room, she felt that icy heart bend and shatter. For the first time, she regretted her kill. She regretted meeting him in that bar one day, slumped over the counter like some old, divorced bastard. She regretted it, because he was probably never coming back. He was going to go off and die and leave her all alone, just like how she always wanted it to be.

She store into the pale light embedded in his ceiling, letting the bright circle burn holes into her eyes. He was a pig. A filthy, disgusting, repulsive nerd who was probably going to die alone in a pile of thoroughly used tissues. Looking once around his room, she thought herself a masochist for falling for him. He collected _toys _for fuck's sake. What kind of honest, respectable thirty year old man does that?

Her mind wandered towards the silhouette of the man she had left for this unbearable slob. Was it bad that she fucked his twin brother? Was it horrible that she was now laying in his bed, observing the way his cat stretched and rolled about on the cheap, plastic carpeting? She never felt guilty about two-timing Henry like that. Henry was a damn-good husband, even she couldn't deny that. Of course, he was also a ruthless assassin like his pathetic brother, but that didn't stop him from doing everything in his power to please her. She remembered the times he would set up romantic dinners at the fanciest restaurants, only to have her no-show after making him wait for hours, alone. Despite being a prominent assassin, Henry's income still wasn't enough to satisfy her exquisite tastes. Still, he often surprised her with offerings of everything a lady could ever want. Diamonds. Fine dresses. Trips around the world. Nothing was too good for his Sylvia. He didn't even raise his voice when she started disappearing for days on end, no explanation given. Even after the painful divorce, when she gave birth to a beautiful daughter, he still came back to take care of them.

She left all that for Travis. Travis the slob. Travis the self-centered, pillow-humping, otaku bastard. Travis the serial killer. She didn't regret it one bit. Actually, that would be wrong. She did, more than anyone would ever know. It was, undoubtedly, the worst, most despicable thing she had ever done in her life.

By knowing him, she had promised him an inevitably gruesome death. By seducing him, she had condemned him to die in some strange place instead of his own warm bed. By kissing his lips, she had sentenced him to die.

Knowing her was the kiss of death.

Looking around at the blandness, the pale-faced walls, the miniscule, unfeeling specks of dust that drifted in the fading sunlight, she didn't mind it at all. A dirty person lives in a dirty place, right? A dirty person lives in a dirty place.

She loved the filth.

* * *

**Author's Note: **This is the first fic I have done in years, and to be honest, I'm not quite satisfied with it. This fic is just to get me back into writing. Besides this chapter, all other chapters will be pumped out on the spot. No chapters will be pre-written. Anyway, be free to suggest any pairings you would like to see. Seriously, any pairing. (I'll even write about something stupid like Bishop/Schpeltiger. However, I would prefer character/character pairings.) It can be between any character from both games. Throw in some prompts if you'd like! I work better with prompts, anyway. Until then, I'll just be like a malfunctioning printer and keep pumping out chapters for random pairings.

By the way, some chapters will be AU or some shit like that, mostly because I'm too lazy to think of how many ways an assassin can be brought back to life.


	2. One Life, HenryShinobu

**One Life**

**Summary #2: **Sometimes, getting struck by a speeding taco truck the day before your brother's wedding is all you really need in life.

**Pairing: **Henry/Shinobu, post NMH2

**Disclaimer: **No More Heroes is the property of Goichi Suda. I am not profiting off this fic in any way (not counting personal amusement).

* * *

After everything, this was how it was all going to end.

How long did it take to get to that moment? Henry had trouble remembering, but he pushed for any coherence that was left in his muddled mind. Hopefully, his partially exposed brain wasn't frying on the pavement, and he would be allowed just a few more moments of reflection before succumbing to a quiet and relatively peaceful demise.

Oh, that's right. Thirty-three years. Thirty-three years of hard work and well-earned misery. Thirty years of cutting, dicing, slicing, blood splattered wallpaper, and stained smiles. Thirty years of lies, deceit, double-crossing, and missed photos. What a life, huh? He really wished that he had more time. Really. Yet, when the lines of the world began to blur into jagged strokes of bright tans and golds and scarlets (How he hated that color!), he knew it was all going to end in that miserable moment. Oh well.

The wise thing to do in that situation was to perhaps call for help and consider getting a lawyer. Fuck it. Henry Cooldown was not going to call for help anytime soon. He wasn't going to cry to someone about his problems and expect them to feel sorry for him. He had pride! He had standards! And so far, he had always gotten by in life alone. For all he knew, he would rather die than look pitiful for someone. One moment of weakness, and his reputation for being the cool, handsome foil would undoubtedly collapse on itself and create an inescapable black hole filled with the caged laughter of his colleagues.

"Fuck me. Oi'm pathetic." Henry smiled even then, when he could feel the flaps of Death's cloak blowing air into his face. He wondered what he looked like all crumpled up and lying still on the blacktop. He thought about how unforgiving the sun was that day, how the heat roasted him like a stuck pig. Still, was not the least bit angry with it. After all, why should it change for _him_? Why should his death signify anything special? The sun could do what it wants for all he cared. All things aside, his plan was just to die a dignified death and hopefully be remembered amongst the higher-up assassination groups.

To die a dignified death.

Dignified. How cruel! He _supposed_ it was dignified of him to be disgusted that his no-good, cheating ex-wife was getting married to the man she cheated with, who coincidentally happened to be his pathetic twin brother. Fair enough. He _supposed_ it was dignified of him to be a little angry about receiving this news just that morning, the day before the actual wedding. Sure. He _supposed_ it was dignified of him to march directly into the Death Match Bar and down thirteen shots of whiskey in about thirty minutes. Anyone would understand, right? He _supposed_ it was dignified of him to stagger outside into the burning sunshine, shirtless and completely shitfaced, and then amble into the path of a speeding taco truck. Yes, it was certainly dignified! And it was in the greatest manner of dignity that the taco truck driver had just sped off, leaving him there to contemplate on where his miserable life went.

"You know, I've always thought 't would be bett'r than this." Henry was surprised he could speak, considering how roaring drunk he was at the moment. How long has it been? Five minutes? Five hours? "Oi just wish I could see moi daught'r fer one last time."

No. He thought himself foolish for making such a suggestion. He didn't want his daughter to see him, _especially _at a time like this. He didn't want Jeane, his sweet Jeane, to witness her own father's confused rambling and excessive shitfacery. Poor Jeane. Of all the people who had to suffer through this turn of events, she had it the worst. What was going to happen to her now? Who was going to take care of her? How would she react when they told her that her own father, the once greatest hitman of the century, was done in by a taco truck?

In the distance, Henry could faintly hear the buzz of another speeding vehicle. There was no doubt in his mind that the driver would probably not give a fuck about some poor bastard lying on the street and just shred over him. The impact would undoubtedly kill him, and then he would probably spend his miserable afterlife playing chess and having more whiskey shots with the many people he had slain during his long and arduous career. Hell couldn't be _that _bad, right? Considering how many people went there every day, Henry figured that it would be just like going to group therapy for sick, perverted killing maniacs and semi-alcoholics like himself.

"Not too bad," muttered Henry, shutting his eyes. "Not too bad." He probably had it good. Many of his fellow assassins had ended their lives on less graceful notes. He remembered that flamboyant magician, who had reportedly screamed in anguish even as his body was being torn in half by a raging buzzsaw.

For him, it would be like a falling asteroid. There would be a whistling, a crash, and after all the lights and music, a deadening silence.

"Henry Cooldown. Mr. Cooldown." There was a wave of cruel sarcasm in his voice. "One of the greatest assassins of his time. Aged thirty-three." An expression of bemusement uglied his features, as if he had forgotten some profound thing he was about to say. "We will remember him…for getting drunk off his ass the day before his brother's wedding, getting run over by a taco truck, and then getting hit again. Amen."

He laid his head down and thought it was some cruel joke when nothing happened. He waited a few more seconds. Nothing. Still more. Nothing. When he gathered the strength to hold his head up, he found that the motorcycle that was to end his life had actually swerved around him and was now speeding away into the sunset. Henry doubted that said driver even looked at him the whole time it was happening. In all his drunken glory, Henry probably looked like roadkill to him.

Lightly, Henry bounced his head on the concrete. "God damn me. Screw it. Going to sleep."

All his hopes for silently passing away in his sleep were dashed after being jolted in the face by a fist of dry road dust. Coughing and cursing like a good, old, Irish drunkard, he tried to get a peek at the inconsiderate bastard who had stopped to save his life.

"Hey." The stranger's voice sounded kind of funny to Henry, and he wondered if it was the whiskey or his own desperation. "You alive?" The stranger kicked him in the ribs with a pointed shoe.

Henry tried to speak, but all that came out of his mouth was an incoherent string of mumbling and bubbles.

"Egh, shit." The stranger rolled him over with a heeled foot. "You're drunk!"

"I think _you_ don't know that?" slurred Henry, not even caring if what he had said made any sense. In the back of his mind, in a part where he was still reasonable and vain, a murmur could be heard begging him to get the fuck up and pretend this moment never happened. Maybe he still had a chance to walk away from it. Maybe.

"And you're covered in vomit!"

Too late.

"No shit," hissed Henry, head lazily flopping about. "Do me a favor, would ya? Get me a beer. Oi would like one, lost drink before meetin' with the big, red bastard himself."

"Stupid." Again, a slight kick to the ribs. "You're not dying. You're just some drunk shitface passed out in the middle of the road."

"Fuck!" Henry was twisted between genuine concern and a general want of being left the fuck alone. Being rudely woken up from a relatively peaceful nap irritated him – even if this person had stopped to possibly rescue him. "Why'd you do that for?"

"I'm trying to help you, you bastard. Can you stand?"

Henry did something akin to a push-up and a cat stretching, which inevitably ended with him face down in a puddle of his own good, old-fashioned, homemade vomit. He tried again to lift himself. Fell. Tried yet again. Fell. Again. Fell. He eventually gave up, using his bare, sweat-marinated arm as a pillow.

"Hey!" The stranger sounded especially agitated but stayed in place, nonetheless. "Wake up. I'm not waiting here for you to get your shit together."

Henry knew that tone all too well. Through his slit eyes, he could make out the shape of two stocking-clad feet suspended on a pair of six-inch, black stiletto heels. "You're– You're a woman." A woman in stripper heels driving a motorcycle. At the moment, it was all too much for a drunken Henry to conceive. "Have you always been a woman?"

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" The odd woman stood over his crumpled, curled body for a few more moments, debating on how she was going to help him up without actually having to _touch_ him. She could've used the sheath of her sword to snag him up by his shirt, but unfortunately for both of them, Henry left that article of clothing back in the bar. "I'm going to say it one last time: get up."

Henry didn't budge. The fourteen shots made him feel fat and warm, kind of like his brother's cat on any given day. The blacktop seemed pretty comfortable at the moment. Why ruin such bliss with a joyride on some stranger's motorcycle? Okay, so maybe he _wasn't _dying today. Good. Now he didn't need help from anyone. Hopefully, the stranger will just get back on her little motorcycle and drive away. Tomorrow, he was going to wake up from all of this, spend the first half hour trying to remember, realize that he's nearly late for the wedding, fix himself up within fifteen minutes, and then go on with his life.

That is, until he felt a clawed hand clench around his throat. A gagging noise arose from Henry's mouth, but the woman, a perpetually pissed-off woman by the name of Miss Shinobu Jacobs, was quite sure that she wasn't killing him. Well, at least she hoped.

Anyone who saw her would've thought of a delicate poodle, with how frail looking her body was in comparison to the massive bush of white hair that sat on top of her head. Despite this, she reluctantly steadied Henry onto his feet with ease. She was especially careful about digging her inch long nails into his throat, not out of fear for his safety, but mostly because she had just gotten an expensive manicure fifteen minutes before and wasn't planning on getting another one. Her other hand dug into the sinewy flesh of his arm, and her face contorted into an expression of great disgust when she felt the thick coat of sweat on the pads of her fingers.

After doing an awkward waltz for a few seconds, Shinobu threw the drunkard into the side car of her beloved motorcycle, the Iron Lady. Henry landed ass first, relatively unharmed but barely responsive. He smiled mindlessly, wobbled his limbs as if doing a tiny jig, and then once again fell back into a drunken coma.

"Listen up." Shinobu contemplated getting face-to-face with the guy for the intimidation factor, but she decided that a mask of pre-digested lunch wasn't worth it. With the big wedding tomorrow, she didn't need some stranger spitting up all over her. "You better not puke on my ride, got it? One speck, and I'll slice your foot off and leave you to the coyotes!"

The man wasn't one bit shaken by this semi-threat, and Shinobu wondered if he actually heard it. Henry grinned languorously and went back to sleep, his arms crossed snugly over his stomach. His legs spilled over the side of the passenger car, and at first glance, someone could have mistakened him for a corpse. It probably wasn't safe for him to be sitting in such a manner, but she didn't want him to wake up. Even if he was just some drunkard she found laying in the road, she certainly didn't want to wake him up.

He looked so peaceful. Even though he looked like he had just been assaulted by his psychotic mistress _and_ he was drunk as piss _and_ he was probably homeless, Shinobu had to admit that he _did_ look kind of cute all curled up and asleep. The drunken blush that painted his cheeks was contagious, as Shinobu felt a blanket of warmth crawl onto her face. She winced.

"Disgusting." Immediately, her thoughts raced in to correct her. "You think that the drunk bum sleeping in your motorcycle is cute? You stupid girl."

Shinobu was convinced that there was definitely something wrong with her. She had been by herself since she was – what? Fourteen? Fifteen? A lot of people would think that she would want a competent man in her life, or better yet, no man at all. She didn't need anybody. That's what she had always tried to tell herself. This, of course, didn't save her from falling for the most pathetic men in the city. In fact, that was one of the reasons she returned to this hell.

Nevertheless, she was sure that she was going to regret all of this later.

Her eyes were fixed upon the mysterious Irishman as she mounted her motorcycle, making a note on how his lifeless expression undermined his sharp, cruel features. Where was she going to take him? He didn't tell her an address, and for all she knew, he _couldn't_ with the way he was now. Did he even _have_ an address? Immediately, she considered just dropping him off at the nearest police station and letting it go from there, but she wasn't too optimistic about what they might do to him. Drunk people were awfully easy to abuse, and this one was just _asking_ for it.

Wait. Wait. Wait a fucking moment. Fuck. Fuck! Did she actually _care _about this shitface? No! Shit! No!

Her thoughts continued like this for what seemed like forever, but since the beginning, she knew where she was going to take him. Damn her. Damn her and her father, for teaching her how to be a kind, fairly decent human being. Peering backward one last time at Henry, she sighed before flipping the kickstand up.

Being a good Samaritan sure was hard work.

* * *

Henry found himself alive. If any word could describe that moment, it would be "glorious". Like the creation of the universe, it had all began with black and ended with a silent blast of light.

Alive. Sure, his body ached, _and_ he was slightly dizzy, _and_ he felt like he had been hit in the face with a brick, _and_ he also had to take a piss, but he was alive. What a surprise.

Sitting up, he tore away the ratty comforter like he would on any other normal morning. His grey eyes briefly ran over his lap, and he realized that the pants he was wearing now were not the same pants he wore the night before. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure that he wasn't in his own house, sitting in his own bed, nor was he about to take a leak in his own bathroom. Oh well.

He really had to pee.

Getting up onto his bare feet, Henry peered around for a moment. The curtains had already fallen over the windows, which Henry was relieved to see. He didn't need more people witnessing his little escapade – even if he had trouble remembering it at the moment. Actually, he didn't want to think about it. Not now.

Telling from the mortuary quality of the room and the lack of any sort of human contact, Henry assumed that it was night and his abductor had fled to avoid his waking. That was fine with him. He was planning to leave as soon as he could. Well, at least before his rescuer returned.

Pacing around for a bit, Henry idly scratched his head, feeling through the thick tufts of brown hair in the same manner that a man might tickle a dog's belly. So far, he had only found two rooms to go in and out of, one being the bedroom and the other being some kind of pathetic living area. He couldn't help but think that he had been in a similar situation before, dazed and wandering around like some confused window shopper.

After backtracking here and there between the two rooms, the only rooms in that abysmal apartment, Henry finally found a glorious six by three bathroom. Surprisingly, it was the cleanest room in the entire place, as if its usefulness had made it the most esteemed of rooms.

Walking into the bathroom was like walking into a temple, at least for Henry. Whispers of steam clamored around his skin like incense clouds. Apparently, someone else had come to worship at the holy land of saves, as drops of water still clung to the walls of the shower. At last, Henry encountered his destination, a glorious, white porcelain altar. He unzipped his pants.

"I hope I don't have to go to Travis' estate tomorrow," thought Henry idly. "His design choices are atrocious. What respectable thirty-three year old puts a life-size, cardboard cutout in the foyer? It's unbecoming! Oh, and his cat! I fucking hate that cat. Jeane loves that mongrel, but that doesn't stop it from climbing up my trousers every time I come to visit. I swear, that little bugger is just _looking_ for oppurtunities to latch onto my face. I might as well come dressed in an arctic jacket, extra thick mittens, and a ski mask. Wait. Then I'd look like a robber, wouldn't I? Ah, I remember my father back in Ireland, the brazen, old bastard. When we had a robber, he would be sitting him his red armchair with a glass of whiskey and a revolver rested across his lap. What a guy! He would even offer the robber a glass before brutally ending his life with a lump of cruel, black death. Afterwards, he would turn to me and say, 'Henry…'"

He almost ran off, piss trailing, when he heard the startled, semi-disgusted shriek of a woman.

An ominous notion rode into his thoughts: Was he even in the stranger's apartment? What if the stranger had just dropped him off at some random person's residence? It's not entirely implausible. He _was _quite hammered, and he _is _prone to do horrible, disgusting things when in such a state. In fact, he kind of felt sorry for the mysterious savior for having to deal with his drunk ass. Still, a stranger going through the effort to plant him in some poor woman's apartment is absurd, but one could never be sure in this town.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Surprisingly, the woman didn't sound too scared about having an odd man in her bathroom, doing his business in her toilet. In fact, she had this tone of anger, of fearless defiance. Henry thought himself lucky that no one paid for her death. She sounded like she could and _would_ put up a fight.

It was something he found oddly attractive. Charming, even.

He calmly turned his head, catching a glimpse of the heckler from the corner of his eyes. The first thing to catch his attention was a pair of long, slender legs running up towards a towel, which he recognized as his stranger's. Her slender arms were tied around herself, as if her towel was going to fall at the mere sight of him. This gave Henry a rather delightful view of her cleavage, which seemed to swell upon being squished against her chest. She had very prominent lips curled into a slight frown and a pair of odd, violet eyes clouded by an arc of thick, black lashes. Dark, lovely skin contrasted with the white of her hair, which seemed to rebel against all reality by defying gravity itself. It reminded him very much of its owner, the pissed-off, belligerent woman who was now staring him down intently.

"You're not even going to stop?" asked the woman, agitated.

"Nope. Oi see no reason to," stated Henry, completely unfazed by the fact that he and his stranger were almost naked and in the bathroom together, waiting for him to finish pissing.

"Well hurry up," snapped his stranger. "I need to take a shower. I'm going to a big wedding tomorrow, and I don't need a kid to take care of. As soon as you're done, take your shit and leave."

"A wedding? Let me guess. Travis Touchdown."

Shinobu recoiled. "Wait. How did you know? Are you _stalking_ me?"

Henry almost chuckled. "Everyone in town knows about it. Me? I wos invited. Oi really don't want to go, but the groom is my brother. What can you do?"

"_You're _Henry Cooldown?" This guy was fucking with her. Henry Cooldown. Legendary assassin. The suave, cool brother of Travis Touchdown and the most eligible bachelor in all of Santa Destroy. Passed out in the middle of the road. Pissing in her toilet. She had only seen him once in-person, and at that time, he was frozen in a block of carbonite. This could not be the same guy, even if she knew in the back of her mind that he was.

"Yep. And you're Shinobu Jacobs." Henry zipped up his pants. "Don't look so surprised. The assassin community is surprisingly close knit." Flush.

"So what? You wanna fight?"

Henry chuckled. What an absurd suggestion. Henry was sure he could outrun her and seize his weapon first. There was also no chance that a college-aged girl could fight off an assassin with years of experience and various titles on his shoulders. What was she going to do? Scratch his eyes out with her nails?

"That's the least of moi worries." Henry trotted over to the sink. "I'm just thinking aboat how Oi'm goin' to survive that wedding tomorrow."

"I wasn't even invited," remarked Shinobu quietly. "I just want to see the groom for one last time." There was a hint of plaintiveness in her voice, which she immediately regretted.

It was all he needed to realize where exactly he was. The same dingy rooms. The same bathroom. The same ratty, red armchair perched in the living room, where Travis liked to jerk off to his moe anime. It was all Henry needed to know to figure out his stranger's motive for returning to such a horrid place. It was almost amusing, actually. "To tell you the truth, Oi almost wasn't invited. The only reason Oi got an invitation was because my daughter wanted to see me. Her mum, my ex-waif, is the bride."

"Wow, that really blows."

"You would think that the brother of the groom would be best man," continued Henry, not caring that his back was facing another killer. "Nope. Oi'm just there to take up space and get on with my life." He didn't want to tell her the whole story. He didn't want to tell her about how his own wife had cheated on him with his twin brother, how the messy divorce nearly destroyed him, how his own daughter might not even be his... It was already embarrassing enough that Travis had chosen his fruity personal trainer to be his best man instead of him.

"We should totally _crash_ the wedding." On Shinobu's face was the rarest sight ever. A smile. "It would be a lot of fun."

Henry turned to look at his stranger, the wily Shinobu Jacobs. This woman, who was at first ornery and a bit violent, was now suggesting that they pull something crazy at his brother's wedding. Together.

With his ex-wife Sylvia, he had at least gained experience with radical women, but there was something quite different about Miss Shinobu. He didn't have much in common with Sylvia other than the fact that both could be snakes when the time called for it, but there was something in Shinobu much akin to himself. Pride. Excessive vanity. An air of imperiousness. And under it all, the same string of pain.

Maybe he wasn't going to regret this after all. After all, he needed more fun in his life.

Henry smiled. "We should."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Back after a month of procrastination. I honestly feel like this chapter is a bit rushed, especially towards the end. Seriously, about three-fourths of the fic is dedicated to build up. I also feel that many of the sentences are redundant. I might go back and revise it if I'm that dissatisfied. I also want to do a follow-up to this, as I can imagine Shinobu and Henry being lined up for their mugshots with big, eerie grins on their faces.


	3. My Woman, HenrySylvia

**My Woman**

**Summary #3: **Throughout their ten-year-long marriage, all she had given him was heartache; but even then, she was still his woman. **  
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**Pairing: **Henry/Sylvia, post-NMH

**Disclaimer: **No More Heroes is the property of Goichi Suda. I am not profiting off this fic in any way (not counting personal amusement).

**Author's note: **After a year-long slump in my writing, I got in touch with others in the NMH fandom and finally regained my muse. Anyway, it's probably pointless to put this here, but I'd like to thank my friends in the fandom. Also, I'd like to thank the people who are still reading this piece of shit after more than a year of not updating.

* * *

"Goodbye, Henry."

With those last words, his wife of ten years abandoned her ring on his coffee table and walked out of his life forever. The door shut behind her in a soft, benign click, and then everything was silence. For hours, only silence.

Sylvia had always been somewhat unemotional, even during those early, flushed years when they had dreamed of a perfect union and a small family. The distance had shown on her face; she didn't even look up from her phone when he had confronted her about the affair. She didn't even become remotely upset. Worse, she didn't even find the effort to snap at him like she did with his brother, that bastard. It had never bothered him before; but in those few crucial moments, her blank expression pained him like a beam katana through the guts.

Instead, she had explained to him in very clear, unaffected terms how she didn't desire his house, his money, or even custody of their only daughter. Instead, she had looked up at him with those eyes — those green cat's eyes which he had once fancied — and told him that the only thing she wanted was for him to stay out of her life for good.

In the end, she had wanted nothing, not even his grief.

Henry Cooldown had never been the one for crying. He couldn't remember the last time he had come close to demeaning himself in such a manner, and he had figured a long time ago that his capacity to shed tears had faded with all the blood. Just blood. That was what a childhood spent at Irish orphanage on top of a fruitful career in assassination did to a person. Yet, a feeling of absolute emptiness hovered over him like a vulture, sometimes swooping in to attack him violently, other times leaving him vaguely aware of its presence.

Cool, handsome foils like him weren't supposed to feel heartache. They were supposed to remain eternally detached, as if every other person were a burden to them. Maybe that was why he and Sylvia were perfect for each other; at least, they had been, once. He had been a seventeen-year-old Oxford student, freshly aged out of the orphanage and ready to face the world alone. She had been only fourteen at the time, frail-looking, but unafraid and, most of all, proud.

It had been a predicament straight out of an Ayn Rand novel — a proud man finding an equally proud woman among a gaggle of spiritless plebeians. They had spent the whole soirée coolly avoiding each others' gazes, waiting for the other to strike first. No one else there had been even faintly aware of their silent duel, one which they had fought with sly smiles and wandering eyes.

Before he had spotted her that fateful day, he'd been certain that he was doomed to an eternity of asexualism. Even at seventeen, the notion of sex disinterested him, but romance — Romance had been nothing but a long-lost twin brother to him. It existed, sure; but it had held no real significance to the champion fencer, whose only passion in life had been the beam rapier. To the many young women whom he had the misfortune of charming, a sense of chivalry had oftentimes been the only thing buffering his wildly murderous impulses. Otherwise, he had found them rather low on conversation. _Boring_, even.

The exuberant girl in the simple white dress, she had been cheating drinks out of a few poor, blue-balled academics for hours. It had been apparent to everyone at the convention that she was the youngest in attendance, yet she had carried herself as if she were the most respectable person in the entire room. Only, nobody even knew her name. Not any of the big name academics. Not the stately butler who had been in charge of the reservations. Not even the host with the awful, powder blue tie and white shoes.

He had pondered asking her name over the course of the last hour, but he had decided that it would have degraded him too much to come crawling to her like the other dozen or so enamored suitors. Instead, he had settled for observing her little con, a small smile forming on his handsome features whenever one of her middle-aged fans brought her back an expensive treat. Each time, she would graciously take the offering, smile ever so slightly, and then gently commend the man as if he were a dog.

All those big-name intellectuals had probably messed their trousers at her empty compliments, the playful words of a precocious fourteen-year-old. Yet, all those glasses of exquisite wines had remained full on the adjacent table, hundreds of pounds wasted at the whim of one sadistic girl. It had been below her to actually enjoy them; he had figured that she did it only for the challenge, if not for the amusement of seeing accomplished men so desperate for attention.

It was when they had begun to catch each other's gaze that he found himself becoming a wary. Upon one of her fatal, direct stares, the young man three-sixtied and ambled off towards the refreshments table, his forehead and cheeks covered in a thin film of sweat. It would have hurt his pride too much to admit that she had flustered him. Still, he could feel her smirk burning against the back of his head — he had retreated, and they both knew it.

Up until then, Henry Cooldown had never retreated from anyone.

During his fencing matches, he had found himself narrowly avoiding the point of his opponent's blade on numerous occasions. Even outside his matches, he had always peered so calmly into the maw of danger — and he had done it all with absolute decorum. He had even developed a keen dislike of getting blood on his clothes, so much so that not even a spot of blood could be found on the hilt of his sword after a mission. There hadn't been anything in the world that could mar him, not even death.

Honestly, he had almost dreaded turning back around, wine glass in hand.

He didn't remember feeling her foot tripping him; all he did recall was that it had taken him a few moments to realize that he was face-down on the ballroom floor, lying in a growing pool of red. Slowly, he pulled his head off the ground, the wine producing a gross, slopping noise as it slid off his jawline and onto the tiles. His gaze was met with the sight of dainty calves, the skin immaculate and nearly white. Their owner remained unmoving as he had continued to stare up at her in a mixture of resentment and awe.

Then, she had tilted her head and smiled. "Oops. Sorry! I should really watch where I'm going! Clumsy me."

Henry had expected her to have one of those low, raspy voices, the kind made for whispering into mens' ears and uttering haughty suggestions to strangers. Instead, her voice was light and girlish, marked by a very distinct French accent.

Her cheerful apology hadn't sounded sincere at all, and he had absolutely loved that.

She didn't even offer him a hand as he had stood up and observed the damage done to his designer suit. Instead, she let out a short laugh, one amused syllable, before offering him one of her untouched glasses.

He hadn't been sure if the gesture was meant to mock him for his ruined attire; but in the end, he had taken the gift from her hand with a charming smile and a short 'thank you'.

She never tripped him again after that night; and since then, he had always been on-guard around her. Perhaps that moment had been the highest point of their relationship, as irrelevant as it seemed. Every day was a mindless shag afterwards, punctuated by long bouts of separation. Sometimes, he'd take her out to exquisite dinners at the finest restaurants in town. They'd spend an hour or two staring vacantly at their plates, sometimes looking up to chat idly like strangers.

Maybe that was why he hadn't been too upset when she started to vanish months into their marriage. Maybe that was why he had never raised his voice, even when he began to suspect that he wasn't the only man she shared empty pillow talk with. When he had gazed into his newborn daughter's _brown_ eyes, he didn't even pose a single question to his wife. Perhaps everything that had happened during their marriage was his fault. Perhaps he should have called her out on her shite a long time ago, cut his losses before they had started piling up.

Perhaps he should have lost the ring before he had the chance to give it to her.

The feeling of skin against skin — of something as simple as a kind touch — was an intimate act he had shared with no one else but her. They had always been too proud to truly _need_ anyone else, but even he found himself aching for a warm body during those rare times he thought about it. Still, those gentle caresses and those false, crooning reassurances had always seemed like an obligation she had to fill out every couple of days. He would never leave her if she continued to play house for him, even for just a few minutes here and there.

The only opponent he could never defeat was the truth, and Sylvia had known it all along. She had played with his weakness. Abused it.

Even so, she was the only woman he had ever loved. She was _his_ woman.

He glanced at the ring left on the table, a white gold, two-carat diamond masterpiece — a shiny, useless trinket that many people had paid for with their blood. Sylvia had demanded that the inscription inside the band be as small as it possibly could; it was just a flaw to her. A mistake.

"_In you, I find Paradise."_

Henry shut his eyes.


	4. No Crows in Heaven, TravisHolly

**No Crows in Heaven**

**Summary #4:** Travis introduces Holly to his brother.

**Pairing:** Travis/Holly, post-NMH2

**Disclaimer:** No More Heroes is the property of Goichi Suda. I am not profiting off this fic in any way (not counting personal amusement).

* * *

"Holly, I'd like ya to meet somebody. This is my brother."

With an arm roped around her waist, he pulled the model closer towards the nondescript, stone slab jutting out of the ground. Besides a newly added can of Destroy Lite and a plastic-covered DVD case, the plaque was barely more than just a grey square adorned with a name in capital letters: Bishop Shidux.

Holly murmured a coy "hello" as she admired the grave, just one of many resting under the shadows of Destroy's main overpass. "Good afternoon, Mr. Bishop."

To the rest of the world, a shabby burial just a hundred meters away from the local university was downright pathetic. In the Assassin Capital of the World, however, being buried was a privilege in itself. There wasn't enough suitable land in the whole of Destroy to lay to rest all those who had fallen during their time, the bloodiest era in the city's history. These days, those who had been alone in the world had their remains snatched away by cleaning crews. Out of public eye, out of public conscience.

No one really questioned where the bodies went after disappearing into the vans. They were just corpses, after all. Battered, mutilated corpses. Bits and pieces of folks that no one had really cared for to begin with. They weren't anybody's concern anymore. They weren't _anything_ anymore.

Rather morbidly, Holly had oftentimes pondered the fate of the unburied when she laid in bed at night. She had heard rumors among her former colleagues that the bodies were compacted and rocketed into space, where they would eventually wither into dust. Then there was the occasional urban legend about how men in grey suits and gasmasks would go around with tanks filled with lye, melting the bodies down and vacuuming the sludge into large thermoses. The question of where those thermoses ended up had never been answered in any of the tales, but Holly could've sworn that the farmlands outside the city were beginning to smell like blood.

She was the No More Hero's only opponent to receive a burial, as hasty as it was. For that, she was eternally grateful.

A burial meant that someone had cared for her, just as someone had cared for Mr. Bishop, too.

"Hey, uh—" Travis faltered. His gaze tore itself away from her, but he managed a coy grin. "Thanks for helpin' me wrap Bishop's present up and all. He always got real pissed off whenever someone threw away the paper coverslip. He was kind of OCD about that shit."

"I'm sure he's very thankful, Travis." As thankful as a dead person could be upon receiving a shrink-wrapped copy of Michael Haneke's _Funny Games_, which was (in Travis' words) "the not-shit, original Austrian version." Travis had gently goaded her into watching it with him earlier, if not out of the desire to waste time with her, then out of respect for Bishop's fondness for niche films.

He had once thought those artsy movies were loads of pretentious bullshit — an excuse to pass violence off as art. Yet, Holly had discovered him sitting in front of the television on some early mornings, images of depravity flickering against his deadpan features. Those times, she had left him alone to mourn.

For nearly two hours that same morning, however, they had remained cozied up on Travis' nearly decrepit armchair. Scenes of abject barbarity on screen had been frequently interrupted by Holly's teasing or Travis' commentary or the hiss of a newly opened Destroy Lite. Unlike average people, they hadn't covered their eyes or muffled out the world when the son character had his head taken off with a shotgun blast. Travis hadn't even lowered the bottle from his lips when the two teenaged antagonists had thrown the mother, bound and gagged and terrified, into the cold waters of the lake to die.

They didn't have to hide from the ugliness of the world.

After seeing it all in real life, the bloodbaths in movies seemed like merely a child's sick fantasy. Even after a few months of living as a normal woman, Holly had often found herself bewildered at the fact that seeing a jumper's mangled corpse lying prostrate on a wrecked car or noticing a pile of guts cooking on the blacktop wasn't supposed to be an everyday occurrence. At least, not to the happy, sound citizens — the ones who had never known of Destroy's underground world, or if they did, chose to ignore it.

But them? They were the targets of Haneke's vision. Travis, in all his dimness, hadn't caught onto it, but the film presented a grim message to people like them. The people who could simply watch a hanging or a mass execution while eating a nice dinner. The people so unresponsive to violence that they could murder a stranger — a mother, a father, a son or daughter, even — and not feel one god-damn thing afterwards. They were the real psychopaths. They were the dangerous ones.

Mr. Bishop, he was simply a victim, one of many in that sinner's paradise.

"Holly."

Her eyes creaked open. "Yes? What is it?"

"I've never asked you this before, but—" He eyed the letters of Bishop's last name, comically misspelled on his grave as if it were the one, last way the world could dump on him. Sidacks. "Do you believe in Heaven? In Paradise?"

Immediately, the Swede shook her head. Her voice remained placid. "No. I don't believe in Heaven."

"No Heaven?" Travis balked. "But you did die, right? What did you see?"

To any other assassin, the question would have been offensive, possibly therapy-inducing. She only glanced at him with those odd, golden eyes and smiled. "Travis, I will tell you a story."

The former Rank One smiled back, although his was marked with faint exasperation. "Another one?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. I apologize." Holly just shut her eyes again, as if trying to squeeze out the images from her head. Smooth strokes of green and pale blue surrounding a narrow, grubby street. A quaint townhouse. A mother and father that she would never see again. "This one won't take too long. You have my word."

"I'm sure Bishop would like to hear it," assured Travis. "He doesn't get much company here."

A small smile formed onto her lips, bittersweet. "When I was a child, I watched my father cut down a tree." No assassin was ever eager to bring up childhood memories, even if they had been happy ones. _Especially_ the happy ones. They were the absolute worst to think about. "But in order to do so, he had to get rid of the family of crows living in it."

What? He kill 'em?"

"No." She peered upward slightly, that plaintive smile growing slightly sadder. "He took the nest and left it on the ground beside our house. It was full of little eggs, still warm to the touch. I remember feeling sadness over the mother not being able to find them when she returned to her ruined home."

Travis smiled. "Those are real cushy thoughts for someone who carries missiles in her leg."

Holly simply shrugged, although her smile lightened. "I thought that maybe she would be able to find them if I left the nest near where the tree used to be. Only, a heavy rain was coming, and I was afraid that the eggs wouldn't make it."

"So you took 'em inside with you?" Travis' gaze hovered over her gentle, melancholic expression. He didn't think that he had ever seen her demeanor any different than how it was then, as if the years of silent grief had shaped themselves into her features.

She looked away. "No. I thought I would get in trouble if I took them inside with me, and I wanted the mother to find them. I spent three hours building a fort out of twigs to protect the eggs from the rain."

"But they lived, right?"

Again, she shook her head, her eyes lowered towards Bishop's plaque. "No, none of them survived. I came back the day after and found my fort destroyed, along with all the little eggs. At first, I thought that the rain had done it, but I realized years later that it had been prey looking for an easy meal. For a long time, I had blamed myself."

A little taken back, the otaku shoved his hands into his coat pockets. He had never been too adept at dealing with sadness, his own or others. Thankfully, she understood that. "That's a sad story and all, but what does that have to do with whether or not you believe in Heaven?"

"I had gone to my mother in tears and told her about the eggs. Then, I asked her if baby crows were allowed in Heaven, too." She let out a short, humorless chuckle. "I will never forget what she told me. My mother turned around and said to me, 'There is no Heaven. There is no forgiveness.'"

"Whoa. That's pretty harsh." Travis was slack-jawed. Holly hadn't been his girlfriend for too long; in fact, he barely knew anything about her, other than the fact that she had left Sweden when she was fifteen, she was a model, and that she enjoyed indoor gardening and light gun arcade games. Still, he let out a nervous grin, uncomfortable. "So there's _nothing_out there?"

"I didn't say _that_. I simply believe that there is no Heaven waiting for us. No Hell, either."

A breeze passed, shuffling along the occasional empty beer can and potato chip foil. In that moment, he couldn't quite read the expression on her face. Despondency? Regret? Maybe… _hope_, even? He was almost afraid to ask her, to reach too far. "Then what did you mean?"

Their eyes met, a tarnished gold against vibrant blues. Then, for some reason that was lost to him, she _smiled_. Not the bittersweet smile he remembered from the beach all those years ago, but a different kind. One of complacency. "There might not be a Heaven, but that doesn't mean there's nothing for us after death. No, crows do not go to Heaven; but I can assure you— They are never truly gone, either. I'm sure that they are still out there somewhere, and they are _happy_."

With her chin, she gestured towards the grave of his long-dead friend. Bishop. The guy who didn't have the heart to ban him from the store, even when he kept boosting the porno flicks. The guy with the funny Hawaiian accent that only showed when he was pissed off or drunk. The same guy who wore sandals all year around, even during that rare day it snowed — the night he had been murdered.

His brother.

Travis' lips seemed to form a stutter, although no sound left his throat. Just like that time on the beach years before, the Crownless King found himself tripping over his own voice.

Yet, he felt grateful; and during the silence that ensued, he remembered why he loved her soul.

Then he remembered why he loved _her_.

"Holly. Thank you." By some mess-up in the natural order of the universe, he somehow ended up grabbing her hand instead of her butt. Holly's smile grew as her slender fingers tightened around his, and he was forced to smile back.

Bishop was probably taking a massive ghost shit right now at the sight of them. Travis Touchdown, the thirty-something-year-old, pillow-humping, connoisseur of moe, was holding hands with a hot European supermodel. Even crazier, he was actually _in love_ with her.

He turned back towards Bishop's resting place and gave it one, last nod of acknowledgement. "Enjoy the movie, bro. Maybe next time, Holls and I will bring you some Miike, okay? Sorry about the cheap-ass beer."

It wasn't even a moment later when he began his trek back to the rest of the world, tugging a patient Holly along with him. He would have loved to stay for a little longer, but he didn't think his shades would be enough to hide the wetness that had been gathering around his eyes. Not that he would have actually _cried_ in front of Bishop or anything.

After everything he had witnessed, all the horrible things he had done, Sylvia… He was happy, for once. He was happy.

There were no crows in Heaven.

* * *

**Author's note: **I don't ship Travis/Holly, so I believe that this chapter isn't as good as it _could _be. Anyway, the story that Holly tells Travis actually did happen to me when I was younger. However, the nest had been full of robin's eggs, and I had never told my parents about it. I had spent hours building a fort made of pine needles to protect the eggs from an inevitable storm, only to find them all destroyed a day later.


	5. Pride and Presumption, RyujiMargaret

**Pride and Presumption**

**Summary #5:** Assassins can have social anxiety, too.

**Pairing:** Ryuji/Margaret, during NMH2

This chapter is dedicated to ayana-88, Death Dragon shipper and a dear friend. I apologize for having taken so long to complete this prompt. I have been feeling uninspired lately.

* * *

The finale of their conversation, if it could even be called that, arrived in the form of his fist heading towards her face at mach speed. Her gut convinced her that he was trying to start the ranking fight in the most cowardly way possible, in a manner which she had expected only from that bastard Destroyman. With an expression of disgust marring her face, she glided on her heels, pirouetting to the side like an out-of-control top that was dancing near the edge of a table.

That almost took her by surprise, really. _Almost._

Perhaps this entire relationship was built on a mere facade. Perhaps all those silent, cool evenings she had carelessly wasted with this dour gentleman by the cliffside, all those times he had silently listened to her derisive musings - perhaps everything was a mere delusion on her part. Just like her pure girl persona.

That slightly amused smile of hers subsisted, albeit in a strained manner. She had always imagined her placid face as a mask – two masks to be precise, one pulled into a hysterical smile while the other bared the face of inconsolable anguish. Her entire existence on this boorish planet had been dominated by the untamable forces of both comedy and tragedy, so much so that the two sometimes meshed into a vortex of grey laughter. Empty laughter.

In the furthest reaches of her mind, choice words about the Seventh-ranked marched into lines. She pursed her lips to keep herself from spoiling the lyrics.

His quivering arm remained jutting out. If she didn't know any better, she would have been at least remotely charmed by his darling impression of a teapot. Instead of a gush of steam, however, a pitiful flower appeared to sprout up from his tensed grasp. The disproportionately large bloom contained an iridescent glow underneath the moonlight; she had almost foolishly mistaken it for a lily, the flower of death.

She silently vowed to offer it to his grave.

Ryuji urged her on with a brusque grunt, to which she responded with a jarring flip-kick. The sharps of her heels sunk into the flesh of his bared chest as she rebounded, an iota of pressure away from drawing blood. By the time Margaret felt the click of her heels against the dirt, her former suitor had already soared a good dozen feet away from her.

Yet, he had not yet abandoned the measly gift.

Her unfortunate gentleman caller remained face-down in a pile of dried dirt for a few minutes. Margaret imagined that the poor bastard was getting a high out of snorting dust up his nostrils. At least, she hoped so because he was going to be one with the Earth after this incident was settled. Really, she could have launched one well-directed bullet through his temporal lobe. She should have. That slippery cad was trying to take her for a fool!

He already had by pretending to be interested in her. Despite being credited as the fearsome Goddess of Death, Rank Four Margaret Moonlight found herself eschewing the local dating scene in Destroy. Her reception towards the likes of criminal charlatans and roaches desperately trying to ascend from the lowest, shit-stained rung of the rankings ladder had never been conciliatory. Civilians proved to be obscenely underwhelming most of the time, even during their occasional episodes of neurosis. Sometimes, she wondered if their lifelong ambitions consisted of remaining stupid and droll.

Before, she hadn't dared to even fancy the idea of making a pass at her fellow murderers. Assassins, they loved much differently from the majority. As cliché as it was, she often likened their intense romances to Shakespearean plays – imbecilic, emotion-fueled drivel which ended in everyone dying or suffering for the rest of their miserable existences.

Dating in the ranks existed only in whispers uttered by upturned lips. If two assassins had indeed been prigging around, then it only served as motivation for their peers to further steel themselves against the loneliness that haunted the profession. It wasn't much use to make the rounds with someone who could very well be conspiring to end their lives. That philandering libertine Charlie MacDonald had pilfered half of the rankings through such an abhorrent method.

Even his sins could not compare to the dishonor that this brute was subjecting her to now. He was _mocking_ her. He was mocking her with the achingly slow way he lifted himself from the ground, a hopelessly lost, stupid expression disheveling those once rigid features. He was mocking her with his blatant refusal to fight back, even after he had revealed the existence of his deceit.

As much as it demeaned her to admit it, she had once believed the taciturn man to be a gentleman. Sure, his silence knew no conceivable bounds; and he was born in some run-down danchi; and he rode around on a loud, illegally modified motorbike which pissed people off at night – but he listened. Despite his rough demeanor, he was unfailingly polite and gentle outside of battle. She had never seen him lose his temper, not even now with the barrels of her rifles pointed at his face.

He kept his hands situated at his sides, not even bothering to draw his little stabby stick.

"_Weak_," was what his posture said. "_Weak. Fragile. Unworthy. Gullible._"

Margaret propelled herself into the air, only stopping when she could finally look down upon the man who had dared to jilt the Goddess of Death. "I am rather cross with you, you know. I think it's time that I teach you my song. Afterwards, I shall see you hang."

Ryuji's retort arrived in the form of a panicked caw. His mouth slacked open as if he were actually going to protest. She was expecting a fierce, "Come out, dragon!" followed by a raging serpent of purple flame emerging from its infernal cage. Instead, the man tightened his jaw shut, only to have his mouth slightly agape a few seconds afterwards. He seemed like a guppy with the way he stupidly opened and shut his mouth, as if he were sucking in poo water rather than trying to articulate himself.

Within earshot, a low beating signaled a few warning shots from the sniper. Ryuji's eyes seemed to expand out of their sockets as he danced around the gunfire, inches away from having a hole punched through his sternum. He brought his hand out towards her, fingers together, as if his calloused palm could block the rounds.

She had to admit that the biker could dodge remarkably well for a three-ranks-short, incontinent dipshit. He remained in that ridiculous pose as he barreled from side to side, avoiding her relentless attacks. She had tried tapping him from afar with her slugs, only to have him bound away from the crosshairs of her scope at the last moment. Many a time, his skin was merely a margin away from being torn off by the tips of her scythes.

All the while, her voice trailed off into a melodic tangent.

"I took the gamble for the rest of you;

I've been cheated, but I didn't lose;

Please count your sugars before you abuse;

Give them a kiss, then give them a noose."

If anything, her song somehow resulted in an impromptu jig from Mr. Dragon Boy. He made a show of waving around the flower over his head, perhaps thinking that she'd be able to see it a whole lot better if he complemented the waving with a few dainty spins.

She gave a curt laugh, before aiming her next bullet at the puny offering. "Is that supposed to be your flag of surrender?"

Ryuji's vocal cords seemed to braid inside his throat. His next words came out in whispered staccatos. "I—I love you."

"Do you take me for a dullard, sir?" Margaret brought the head of her scythe down, the blade producing a whish as it cleaved through the air. "You will not be playing with my heart! Not mine, you unscrupulous fuck!" Then the gothic lolita emitted a war cry terrifying enough to shrivel any gonads in a hundred mile radius.

The stunned redhead managed a clumsy hop before landing on his butt. As the bloodthirsty reaper leaped towards him, he once again stuck his arm out and began waving the crystal flower around. Her stare hardened. Perhaps he thought that such a puerile motion would distract her; it worked well with small animals, after all.

"Any last words?"

He bit back a grunt as his eyes snapped shut. His breathing hitched – that strong torso she had once admired began to sink and then puff out erratically. Having accumulated all of his spiritual power, Ryuji emitted a purple light as he let out a massive roar truly befitting of a dragon. "No! For you! This is for you!"

He hoisted the flower over his head in exaltation and then pointed at it with his other hand. It reminded her of a scene in that children's movie about talking lions, the one in which the mandrill raised up the newborn prince for the entire tribe to see. She could almost hear the accompanying music.

Margaret's expression of unyielding rage collapsed. "Oh. You were giving me a flower."

"Yes!" The biker threw his arms into the air in a victory pose. That foreboding aura disappeared in a haze of dust as he threw himself onto the ground, having finally given up. His gaze moistened with glee as it reached towards the star-speckled sky. Silence possessed the two of them.

Gradually, that bewildered O of a mouth tightened into a small smile. Margaret leaned onto a knee next to the warrior's prostrate body, before gently tugging the glass figure from his limp grasp. She held it up at eye's level, examining how each radiant surface reflected the light of the moon.

"It's lovely. Ryu, why didn't you say something before?" Her blackened eyelids retracted in shock. "Oh, how embarrassing. I seemed to have forgotten your vow of silence."

"What?" His entire face flushed. Needless to say, watching that pinkish tint envelop Ryuji's face was like witnessing some glorious comet – happens only briefly, once every century or so. He quietly uttered, "I'm shy."


End file.
